It has been on the cards for a while and has been a subject often talked about in the same breath with the battle of the search engines. However Google have now put live realtime search capability in their search engine and with it given themselves a massive competitive advantage as well.
Back in October it appeared that Microsoft might just beat Google to the punch when they announced their tie up with Twitter. This seemed even more apparent when Microsoft began testing real time search with their beta version of Twitter search at Bing.com/Twitter.
The opportunity of realtime search was Microsoft’s chance to gain a competitive edge over Google. Search as it currently sits is most likely always going to be dominated by Google as among other things their algorithm is vastly superior. The opportunity for realtime search therefore was the perfect ingredient for Microsoft to differentiate itself and even convert some Google loyalists over to its new search engine Bing. Well now that Google have put their realtime search function fully live - the first of the major search engines to do so – this could once again spell misery for Microsoft.
To make matters worse for Microsoft, Google are tying in realtime results from Twitter, Facebook and Myspace – the big three social networking sites - and this is an indicator that Facebook and Twitter are not going to fully commit the real time search market themselves giving Google the go ahead to take up most of the market. This also makes you wonder what Microsoft can offer that Google cannot already.
Well it is not all bad news for Microsoft as there are some features offered from their beta Twitter search that Google do not offer. For instance not all search queries will generate real time results in Google as it is only hot trends that do so. Bing on the other hand incorporates all searches into their results which open up the usefulness of realtime search that bit more and perhaps can be an area that online businesses can take advantage of. So this could certainly be used to Microsoft’s advantage once they put realtime search fully live in Bing.
We are in the midst of something quite revolutionary in search and the web as a whole and once again it would appear that Google is behind it. However until Microsoft give us their offering it is still too early to tell who will come out on top. I think that realtime search still has many twists and turns yet however there is no doubt that Google have given themselves the edge…